Thursday, December 25, 2025

From the Archives - Bits & Bobs Volume XXV - Holiday Edition

Introduction

This is the twenty-fifth installment in the “From the Archives — Bits & Bobs” series. Volume I of the series is here, Volume II is here, Volume III is here, Volume IV is here, Volume V is here, Volume VI is here, Volume VII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume IX is here, Volume X is here, Volume XI is here, Volume XII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume XIV is here, Volume XV is here, Volume XVI is here, Volume XVII is here, Volume XVIII is here, Volume XIX is here, Volume XX is here, Volume XXI is here, Volume XXII is here, Volume XXIII is here, and Volume XXIV is here. There is no common thread running through all these volumes, and they jump around in time and place, so you can read them in any order, disorder, preorder, reorder, or backorder. You can skip around, rip around, take little sips, mouth the words with your lips, and dip in and out.

What are albertnet Bits & Bobs? They’re passages recycled from old letters or emails to friends or family. For this special 25th edition, today being the 25th and of December no less, I’m doing something different: all of these are taken from my past holiday newsletters, which—being satires of the newsletter genre—tend to be a little dark. So brace yourself … in fact, you may wish to fortify yourself in advance with some spiked eggnog.


1999

This year has been really fun and exciting. We’d have liked to travel overseas like most of our friends do, perhaps to see some ruins, maybe in Greece, but we didn’t. We did go to Moab, Utah, for camping and mountain biking in Canyonlands National Park. The Slickrock trail made E— cry, and we came home early, but we had a great time!

Another big thing we’ve been doing this year is trying to buy a home. We’ve learned a lot about classics, charmers, indoor/outdoor living, and understated elegance. Unfortunately we can’t seem to afford anything. But those of you who have been to our apartment know we’re just fine where we are!

If you aren’t mentioned in this newsletter, please don’t feel bad—we’ve been so busy it makes us forgetful. One thing keeping us busy has been business travel. On my last trip I found out the hard way that the cough syrup bottle has to be stored in an upright position. During my layover in Denver, in the airport bathroom, I discovered that the syrup had completely emptied itself into my travel bag! It was the cherry flavor, bright red and really sticky. As I was washing the things in my toiletry bag, it fell into the sink, and because of the little electric eye, the water turned on automatically and filled the bag before I could stop it. The syrup got all over everything in my entire bag—my socks, my underwear, my shoes, clothes, everything. The airport janitor says it happens all the time.

2002

We did a newsletter three or four years ago and just never really got around to writing another one. So, let me fill you in on what has happened in the last few years. I sure hope you remember us.

We bought a house a few years ago, in Albany, after a whole bunch of unsuccessful offers. It was a very frustrating process. E— even cried, but I didn’t. I guess you could call me the “man of the house.” We got a cat too, M—, and we were really excited about her for a while but now we have a baby, A—. She is so cute. She’s really, really smart. Like today I gave her her lunch, and then handed her a wet paper towel to see if she would wipe her own face. Well, what did she do? She tried to wash her foot! I’m actually a bit worried because I’m told that exceptionally intelligent babies are a lot more work. I guess that’s the price you pay.

A— is so fun to watch when she’s playing with other babies. She’s very assertive. She takes away the other kids’ toys, which isn’t very nice but you have to admit, those skills will be very useful when she’s an executive of some kind some day. That’s what I tell people, at least people whose babies haven’t lost out to her. Actually, it’s mostly the non-parent friends I tell this to. I’ve definitely learned that some people don’t want babies of their own, but that doesn’t mean they don’t love babies. They even “get” the kind of parent-style joking that we parents do. It’s very subtle. For example: this friend of mine (no kids) takes me aside one day, and gives me this little speech about how not everybody is going to be as interested in the details of A—’s development as somebody who has a baby. And at first I’m thinking, What is this guy talking about? And then I realize he’s joking! Total deadpan. That was so funny.

2003

So, about this Christmas season. I’m just going to say it: above all other feelings, I just find its obligations oppressive. On top of that I can’t stand the music. Those songs get stuck in my head and just sit there, agitating me like a chunk of peanut stuck in my teeth. I try to get rid of them, try to do a song-graft with something equally catchy but non-holiday-themed, but it’s futile and I get the mental equivalent of a tired, sore tongue that can’t stop pushing against the nut fragment. Why do I hate the music so much? Beyond how insipid it is to begin with, it’s the way the songs are enhanced, groomed, and molested. Usually you hear this music in malls and stores (I haven’t heard a caroler in decades). These places have two objectives in mind when meddling with the music. First, they believe that it’s old and tired and needs to be freshened up (when actually the whole holiday is supposed to be about honoring tradition). Second, many of these venues don’t want to be exclusionary, so they have to stick to the non-specific winter holiday songs. Shrinking the list of candidates means that the remaining songs become terribly overplayed, like “Winter Wonderland” and “Jingle Bells” (which was originally a Thanksgiving song, by the way).

I want to comment on one song in particular that I cannot stand: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It’s just plain stupid. You mean to tell me this was the first year Santa encountered fog, and that he couldn’t have the elves make him a powerful headlight? Couldn’t the songwriter have thought of something more plausible, like Santa took pity on the poor deformed reindeer and created a position for him, at the head of the group no less, just to show those other snooty reindeer a thing or two? That would be a lot better lesson than the one we really get: that you should be loved and included based on your usefulness. My indulgent sense of moral outrage is not satisfied. I want to see those other reindeer pay for their earlier bigotry. The other thing I hate about this song is that it’s inextricable from the made-for-TV movie, so you can’t hear it without having all the cloying visions return, like how you picture dancing hippos when you hear that song from “Fantasia.” So I have to picture those cutesy reindeer with their absurdly oversized eyes, and that stupid elf Hermey with his swoopy blond hair, and the abominable snowman with the messed-up teeth. And now, as a parent, I even have the Rudolph board-book that, of course, A— loves. So I read it sweetly, suppressing the snideness that threatens to creep into my voice (although I can never help embellishing the story; for example, Rudolph’s nose is red because he’s a drunk and all the blood vessels in his nose have burst; Clarice is attracted to him only because he’s an outcast and she wants to gall her father; Hermey the Misfit Elf is actually kind of a narcissist; and the Abominable Snowman only wishes he were abominable, when in reality he’s just as uptight and judgmental as everybody else).

2004

I have to admit, it’s been really tough trying to think up what to say in my newsletter this year. So much has happened, and yet I’m still in the same place I left off at after last year’s edition. And beyond that, I just don’t feel like I’m in the right spirit, I guess you could say. It’s time for jolly things, and happy things, and I guess I feel happy enough and jolly enough until I start thinking about writing the letter itself. I talked to a friend about it, and he said he totally understood—that given the shaky state of world affairs, he couldn’t get into a cheery holiday mood either. But he totally misunderstood me. I’m talking about the little, private humiliation of not having anything impressive to report.

Well, not humiliation, really, but what I mean is that a Christmas letter is supposed to be high-spirited and optimistic because of how well the year has gone. And though it hasn’t been a bad year, I just somehow feel like my family came up a bit short. For example, I’ve always been a bit embarrassed when people ride in my station wagon, because it’s so old and doesn’t even have drink holders. Well, this year we went out walking with another young family and I felt the pain all over again, because their stroller had drink holders! So I looked at my second-hand stroller closely for the first time, and not only does it not have a drink holder, but it’s just old and beaten and kind of corroded. So whenever I’ve tried to think of happy things to say about my family all I can think about is that stroller. So tawdry.

And that’s not the only thing that’s giving me writer’s block. I look back on the year and my kids were just, well, I don’t know, they just screamed and melted down and made all kinds of messes. Not very impressive, which they seem to know themselves, and E— and I don’t kid ourselves that we’re much better.  Home life is just one fiasco after another it seems (well, I don’t make messes, though sometimes I get irritated and maybe break a few things and E— calls it a tantrum). It’s like somewhere along the line this family just lost its pride. Maybe I’m not the only member of this household who notices the shabby station wagon and stroller.


2005

A magazine called “Real Simple” appeared in my bathroom. It’s an easy read. It really is simple. There’s a recipe in there called “Cupcakes with Ice Cream Frosting” that has only two ingredients. One is “cupcakes.” I’m not kidding! Anyway, there’s a column in “Real Simple” where readers write in with their time-saving tips. I’m going to send them this one: stop worrying about cleaning out the car. The next time you forget the diaper bag, you’ll be glad you can get by with what’s strewn on the floor. We keep a bag of clothes in the back that we intend to donate to the Salvation Army. When we’re really behind on laundry, it’s nice to be able to dip back into that bag to dress the kids.

I wish life could actually be “real simple.” Ever since I became a parent, it seems like things have gotten completely out of control. Kids just seed chaos constantly, in practically every interaction. For example, A— broke down crying during an argument she started about whether “Mulamimoto” (the name of her imaginary cat) begins with an “M” or an “R.” She’d asked me how it was spelled, and I correctly answered “M,” and then she totally refused to accept this answer. How can I teach her to read when she refuses to obey the most basic rules about what sounds a letter makes? I finally capitulated, just to shut her up, and as if to cement the new spelling she made me program the imaginary cat’s phone number into our phone, with the label “RULAMIMOTOR.” Fine, kid, whatever. L—, meanwhile, will fixate on some food item, cry because it’s not presented quickly enough, stop crying when she gets it, but then start bawling all over again. Why? Too hot? Too cold? Too much? Not enough? Not living up to its promise?

But despite being frazzled a lot of the time, I think my attitude was generally pretty good this past year, and that my enduring emotional health must surely rub off on the kids. Still, I sometimes worry. Tonight A— asked me to play a game with her. I expected it to be our standard game, in which I surgically remove her appendix. But tonight she announced she wanted to play a new game: Deathbed. I told her I didn’t know that game, and she told me we could make it up together. It went fine. At the end I told her she had to speak her last word. Her choice: “Done.”


Other albertnet holiday posts

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